


Fresh, Pretty

by zeldadestry



Category: Firefly
Genre: Community: 100_women, POV Second Person, Triple Drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-30
Updated: 2006-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-27 08:32:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/659938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldadestry/pseuds/zeldadestry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When do you finally become a companion?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fresh, Pretty

**Author's Note:**

> prompt 041, ‘Wealth’, for 100_women fanfic challenge

When do you finally become a companion?

It is not necessarily when you first commit to your training, nor when you finish it.

It doesn’t have to be the first time you make an appointment with a client, or the first time you have sex with one for money.

It is different for each woman. Perhaps it is easier for some, perhaps there has been one woman in the annals of companionship who has been able to say - yes, this is what I am - without being, in some way, sorry.

You are not that woman.

You become a companion when you accept that it is your best option, that it will protect you and keep you safe, as safe as can be in an uncertain time and a chaotic ‘verse. Only those who have never hungered would dare suggest that a means of guaranteeing survival could be wrong.

You were nineteen years old and meeting one of your clients at a local tea room. You still remember what you wore, the red silk kimono embroidered with gold. Outside the front door, a young girl leaned against the plate glass window, a wooden box filled with plastic flowers at her feet. “Fresh,” she cried, “pretty!” She couldn’t have been much more than seven, she still sucked her thumb. You bent down, touched your soft sleeve to her hollow cheek to brush the dirt away. “Please, ma’am, please,” she begged, holding out a small bouquet of little purple pansies.

“How much?” you asked. She held up three fingers. There were twelve bunches left. “I’ll take them all,” you said, pulling out your purse.

She burst into tears, clung to your skirts. “Take me! Take me with you!”

No child of yours will ever suffer so.

You became what you are that day.


End file.
